There are other helmet devices designed for protection. Typical of these is U.S. Pat. No. 3,238,535 issued to Richey on Mar. 8, 1966.
Another patent was issued to Greenlee on Oct. 27, 1970 as U.S. Pat. No. 3,535,707. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 3,649,964 was issued to Schoelz on Mar. 21, 1972 and still yet another was issued on Jan. 12, 1982 to Guzowski as U.S. Pat. No. 4,309,774.
Another patent was issued to Stein, et al. on Jul. 9, 1991 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,342. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,237 was issued to Honrud on Jul. 16, 1991. Another was issued to Desanti on Jun. 23, 1992 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,123,114 and still yet another was issued on Oct. 8, 1996 to McFall as U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,855.
Another patent was issued to Johnson, et al. on Apr. 27, 1999 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,579. Yet another U.K. Patent No. GB1511303 was issued to Kemira on May 17, 1978. Another was issued to Berg, et al. on Sep. 17, 1981 as International Patent Application No. WO81/02514 and still yet another was issued on Mar. 7, 1998 to Johnson as Canadian Patent No. CA2184929.
Richey described a welding hood having a protective front surface including a lens through which the hood user may view his work and rearwardly directed side and top surfaces formed integrally with the front surface, the improvement comprising: a transversely oriented cylindrical tube mounted across the hood side surfaces at a location adjacent the inner front surface and above the hood lens, said tube having axially open ends open respectively through apertures formed in the hood side surfaces; an electric motor mounted coaxially within said tube at the longitudinal center thereof, said motor having a driven shaft protruding axially outward at each end thereof; an pair of complementary fan blade units fixed to the motor shaft at the respective axial ends thereof, said blade units being each adapted to draw air axially toward the tube center when rotated by said motor; said tube being further provided with a lower aperture formed therethrough at the longitudinal center of the tube and directed downwardly adjacent the inside front surface of said hood; and light responsive electrical generating means mounted on the exterior of said hood and directed forwardly therefrom, said generating means being wired to said motor so as to operate said motor in response to light incident thereon.
Greenlee describes a welding helmet or the like, comprising a face shielding mask, first means for mounting said mask onto an operator's head, an opening formed through said mask, said opening being so formed as to generally forwardly directed with respect to said mask, an electrically driven motor, a fan assembly operatively, connected to said motor so as to be rotatably driven thereby, and second means carried generally within said opening and operatively connected to said mask for carrying said motor and fan assembly, said second means being effective for positioning said fan assembly in any of a plurality of varying attitudes with respect to said mask in order to enable said fan assembly to direct a stream of air in a selected direction corresponding to a selected one of said plurality of attitudes.
Schoelz describes a ventilating means for a welder's face mask employing a battery-operated blower secured on the mask. Air passageways are provided in the mask which lead from the blower to inlet openings interiorly of the mask for ventilating the area between the mask and the welder's face. Batteries for operating the blower are mounted on the head band, and in structure utilizing a mask which can be tipped up on the headband, switch means are employed between the face mask and the headband which activate the blower in the down position of the mask and deactivate the blower in the up position of the mask.
Guzowski describes a ventilating helmet which takes the form of sheet material wall member which has mounted thereon an electrically operated fan which is adapted to move air to the interior of the helmet. The electrically operated fan is to be operated through the use of a light sensitive, electrical energy producing cell. This cell is to be directly exposed to the source of light energy.
Stein et al. describe a welder's helmet including a panel of solar cells responsive to light generated by a welding operation to drive a fan incorporated in the helmet structure. The solar cells are mounted on the helmet above the viewing window and the fan is mounted in front of the mask below the viewing window. When a welding arc is struck, the light from the torch impinges on the solar panel and generates sufficient electricity to drive the fan. The fan forces air from the inside of the helmet outward through the front face in a velocity controlled stream carefully directed to prevent smoke and fumes from reaching the helmet, and to also blow the smoke away from the weld sight in a particular manner so that visibility of the weld remains clear while not over-oxygenating the weld site. As air is exhausted from the inside of the helmet outward by the fan, fresh air is drawn in around the sides to replace that which is being exhausted to cool the welder and prevent ingestion of fumes and vapors. A photovoltaic power transmission circuit is provided to process electrical energy derived from light such as that produced by the arc of an arc welder during a welding operation.
Honrud describes an apparatus and method of using a light sensitive switch, such as a photo-electric or photo-resistive cell, to actuate a battery powered electric motor which rotates a fan blade located within a housing near a facial area of a welding helmet. When exposed to a high intensity light, such as the light emitted during a welding process, the photoconductive cell actuates the battery powered motor. When activated, the motor rotates the fan blade which draws air away from the face of the wearer and passes such air through a filter into an air flow chamber, thereby, filtering the drawn air. The rotation of the fan blade then forces the filtered air toward the facial area of the wearer. A smoke block, which restricts the entrance of smoke or other contaminated vapors from entering the confines between the interior surface of the helmet and the face of the wearer, may be removably attached to the helmet.
Desanti describes a ventilated welding mask having a three chamber housing mounted thereon. A blower fan is positioned within a second medial chamber. On the rear wall of the second medial chamber, a nozzle is mounted. A conduit extends from this nozzle to an air flow manifold positioned with the welding mask.
McFall describes a welder's helmet having a plurality of photovoltaic cell panels, responsive to light produced during welding operations, for driving a pair of fans secured to opposing side walls of a head protecting shell. The photovoltaic cell panels are angularly mounted to the shell beneath a viewing window provided therein so as to permit the head of the wearer to be turned away from the welding area without affecting fan output. During operation, each of the paired fans impels air through an opening in the shell into the interior space defined by the shell. An optional battery pack, electrically connected to the fan motors provides an electrical power back-up for energizing the fans in the event that insufficient light is available to the photovoltaic panels.
Johnson et al. describe a welding helmet with an air circulating system that includes a welding hood, a head band assembly, and an air circulating system. The welding hood has an interior face receiving cavity defined by an interior helmet surface. The head band assembly being pivotally mounted to the welding helmet. The air circulating system including an air circulating assembly mounted to a top portion of the welding hood a cooling water storage bottle attached to a back portion of the head band, a wick conduit connected between the air circulating assembly and the cooling water storage bottle, a detachable battery pack housing mountable to a front structure of the air cooling assembly, and a pivotally actuation air circulating assembly on/off switch mounted between the welding hood and the head band.
Oy describes a tube with holes 4 for discharging air, closed at one end e.g. by squeezing and connectable at the other to a compressed-air hose, is used for noise suppression of air flow and direction of air flow in personal protective headgear. The tube reduces the noise level of discharging air. The tube also directs the air flow to prevent draughts and keep the front window or net of the headgear clean and dry. The straight or curved cylindrical aluminum tube is 5 to 20 mm diameter, 30 cm long and perforated by 50 round holes 4 whose diameters are from 0.7 mm to 2 mm. Gauge pressures in the tube of 0.2 kgf/cm2 and 1.2 kgf/cm3 produce a free air flow of 60 L/min and 170 L/min respectively. A synthetic e.g. woven nylon ribbon is wound around the tube in one or more layers or a stocking is used. The tube is attached with hose-clips to the helmet.
Berg et al. describe a powdered air respirator 10 designed to provide respiratory, eye and face protection and comprises a hard hat 11, a shell member 20 secured to the hard hat and spaced therefrom to form a generally dome-shaped passageway therebetween, air filtering means 30 in the passageway between the shell member and the hard hat, a face shield assembly 35 attached to and depending from the front of the shell member, a transparent face shield 60 in said face shield assembly, face sealing means 65 on the peripheral edge of said face shield assembly to seal against a user's face from temple to temple provided with air exits adjacent each temple and an air circulating means 70 located in the rear portion of the passageway between the shell member and the hard hat for directing a flow of air through the passageway, air filtering means, interior of the face shield assembly and out through the air exists.
Johnson describes a device for protecting a persons head while working in a hazardous environment i.e. steel industry-welding, grinding or other places where there are hazards to health (lungs, eyes and ears) and a person needs face and head protection from flying particles which may harm an individual. This invention consists of a helmet with a face shield. The helmet also consists of two (2) air filters in which each has a fan to propel air into the helmet. The fans have a rechargeable battery pack for a power source. On the bottom of the helmet is provided a piece of nonflammable material, quite soft and flexible, to provide protection to the throat and neck area from foreign material and ultraviolet rays. The helmet being made of materials designed to provide the same protection as a hard hat.
While these protective devices may be suitable for the purposed for which they were designed, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention. As hereinafter described.
All patents, patent applications, provisional patent applications and publications referred to or cited herein, are incorporated by reference in their entirety to the extent they are not inconsistent with the explicit teachings of the specification.